Saturday, July 1, 2017

Kremlin Talks about Russophobia in West to Force Russians to Unite Behind Putin, Inozemtsev Says

Paul
Goble

Staunton, July 1 – Westerners
carefully distinguish between Russians and the Russian state, showing sympathy
to the former and concern about the behavior of the latter, the kind of
distinction even Stalin made between the Nazis and the German people but one
the Putin regime does not instead exploiting the basest nationalistic feelings,
Vladislav Inozemtsev says.

In an RBC commentary, the Moscow economist
and analyst writes that the Russian government is “teaching Russians to be
afraid of the surrounding world and therefore politicians in Moscow tell tales
how people in this world hate Russians” (rbc.ru/opinions/politics/28/06/2017/59539f189a7947230ea53eb7).

“In my view,” Inozemtsev says, “such
rhetoric discredits the Russian political class by demonstration both the low
level of understanding of what is taking place today in the world and a general
inadequacy of the [Russian] political elite which is living in a reality
invented by itself” rather than in real reality.

Everyone must remember, he
continues, that “the term ‘Russophobia’ refers precisely to Russians … and not
to the Russian state.”But the Kremlin
wants to conflate the two in order to force Russians to think that the West
opposes them and not just the policies of Putin and his entourage.

Any Russian who have travelled or
lived abroad can confirm that ordinary people in the West are not hostile to
the Russian people. Indeed, many of them are extremely sympathetic.What they are hostile to is the aggressive
actions and statements of Putin and his team, moves that they quite reasonably
see as a threat to the world and “are beginning to fear.”

The distance between these two
views, about the Russian people and the Russian state, is so great that many
Russians who have do not distinguish between rulers and ruled, a failure that helps
the Kremlin keep them in line and supporting whatever the leadership chooses to
do, regardless of how outrageous.

By talking about Russophobia in the
West, Inozemtsev argues, “the Russian authorities are appealing to the lowest
most nationalistic feelings of their own citizens: they are attempting to show
that the West does not oppose Russia politically and ideologically but almost
has given rise again to ‘the Slavic-hating’ times of the Third Reich.”

Of course, he continues, “it would
be naïve to deny that many peoples relate to the Russian people with distrust
and suspiciousness.” How else would one expect the peoples of the Baltic
countries or Poland to feel given their histories?But even in these cases, the situation is far
from that described by the Kremlin.

“Latvia, one of the most ‘Russophobic’
countries according to the Kremlin, is the absolute champion in terms of
retaining the fraction of ethnic Russians in its population: In 1989, Russians
formed 33.9 percent; by 2014, they had fallen to 27.3 percent, while in
extremely friendly and ‘non-Russophobic’ Kazakhstan, the Russian share fell
from 37.8 percent to 20.6.”